This exceptional Anaerobic Natural coffee is grown by smallholder farmers living around the kabele (town) in Gedeo County, Yirgacheffe region. Most contributing farmers own less than a hectare of land, and they grow coffee simply as a backyard cash crop. Coffee will usually be interspersed with other subsistence crops, such as sweet potato, mangos and avocados, but there are no other primary cash crops grown in the region.

Our exporter and the Worka mill paid more than the market price for a kilogram of red cherry, and those farmers that bring quality red cherry are paid a cash incentive, ensuring higher-than-average overall quality. Coffee is selectively handpicked before being delivered to the mill collection points, usually within 5 km of the producers’ homes. Great care is taken upon delivery to separate out any overripe, underripe or damaged beans before consolidating with other lots for the road to the wet mill. Upon arrival, employees visually inspect cherry and accept only fully ripe cherry for anaerobic fermentation. Selected cherry is tightly packed in GrainPro bags and sealed shut. Cherry ferments anaerobically (without oxygen) for 18 to 24 hours. After fermentation, cherry is carefully removed from bags and laid to dry in direct sunlight on raised beds. Workers turn cherry frequently to promote even drying. It takes approximately 2 to 3 weeks for cherry to dry.

Worka is our first Ethiopian processed via the anaerobic natural processed and by the taste of it, this won't be our last. Packed with loads of  overripe fruit sweetness, unique combination of 'langsat' fruit with an interesting finish of nashi pear and sencha tea  and definitely one of the sweetest ever that we have purchased and roasted. We can see this quickly in every home-barista brew table and in the menu offering of many of our wholesale partners.